Steven Joyce – Hypocrite of the Week

Fun Fact #1: Student loan stood at $14.235 billion, as at 30 June 2014 – up from 9.573 billion in 2008.

Fun Fact #2: As at 30 June 2013, 721,437 people had an outstanding student loan, registered with Inland Revenue. That’s roughly 16% of the population.

Fun Fact #3: Approximately 1.2 million people – roughly a quarter of the population – have taken out student loans.

Fun Fact #4: Students have borrowed $20.119 billion of which $9.157 billion has been collected in loan repayments. More than 415,000 loans have been fully repaid.

Fun Fact #5: $1.031.7 billion in loan repayments were received, $22.2 million less than last year. The total number of students completing formal qualifications reached 144,000 in 2013 – a decrease of 0.6% from 2012. The number of people enrolled in tertiary education has dropped, from 504,000 in 2005 to about 420,000 (in 2014).

Fun Fact #6: The student fees/debt system began in 1992. Prior to that, students had access to Bursaries and Student Allowances and tuition fees were minimal.

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During Bill English’s Budget speech on 16 May 2013, the Finance Minister made perhaps the most extraordinary announcement that I have ever heard from a New Zealand politician;

Introducing the ability to arrest non-compliant borrowers who are about to leave New Zealand

Making it a criminal offence to knowingly default on an overseas-based repayment obligation will allow Inland Revenue to request an arrest warrant to prevent the most non-compliant borrowers from leaving New Zealand. Similar provisions already exist under the Child Support Act. This will be included in a bill later this year.

It was extraordinary on at least two levels.

The first is because a loan defaulter does not normally fall under the Crimes Act. It is what is known as a Civil matter.

If, for example, you, the reader, default on your mortgage, rent, or hire purchase, the Lender does not involve the Police (unless deliberate fraud is involved). Instead, they apply to the Courts for a remedy.

The Tenancy Tribunal and Small Claims Court are examples where litigants can take their cases before a Court, and make their claims. Police are not involved. In the Tenancy Tribunal, there are not even any lawyers (generally).

For National to intend issuing arrest warrants, for student loan defaulters, takes the matter of a civil contract into the realm of the Crimes Act.

Secondly, this law – if enacted – would not stop people leaving New Zealand. It would prevent people returning to New Zealand.

The law targets ex-students with loans who had moved overseas; who had defaulted on their loan repayments whilst overseas; and who then returned to New Zealand (perhaps for a funeral, holiday, or visit family). Only then were were they to be arrested at an airport as they attempted to board a plane to fly out of the country again.

Shades of former USSR and it’s Eastern Europe satellite-states!

Under such circumstances; what loan-defaulting New Zealander in their right mind would ever consider coming back to this country?

The law was enacted, and as Alex Fensome reported for Fairfax Media last year;

However, others believe the increase [in former students declaring bankruptcy whilst overseas] is down to the Government’s more aggressive pursuit of recalcitrant debtors, and an attempt by some of the borrowers to wipe their New Zealand slate clean.

Student-loan defaulters can be arrested if they try to enter or leave New Zealand, under legislation passed last year.

To complete National’s Soviet-style crack-down on loan defaulters, the story also reported;

Ministers have also considered refusing to renew passports for those who do not engage with Inland Revenue.

As Finance Minister Bill English desperately tries to balance the government’s books and return to a Budget Surplus, it appears that National Ministers are prepared to go to any extraordinary lengths to claw back cash from New Zealanders. Whether those New Zealanders are low-paid paper-delivery boys and girls or the sick needing medication or ex-pat New Zealanders living overseas – this government is reaching deep into peoples’ pockets.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said this about issuing warrants-to-arrest for loans defaulters;

“Just because people have left New Zealand it doesn’t mean they can leave behind their debt. The New Zealand taxpayer helped to fund their education and they have an obligation to repay it so the scheme can continue to support future generations of students.”

Which, when one looks into Joyce’s background, finds something curious.

Steven Joyce, benefitted from a free, tax-payer funded, University education, with no debt incurred from his tuition.

Joyce completed his University studies and gained his degree eight years before the Bolger-led National government introduced student fees/debt in 1992.

Joyce’s university education was mostly free, except for minimal course fees. He was most likely also eligible for a bursary and/or student allowance, as well, to assist his living costs.

As Joyce was reported in the Fairfax story; “The New Zealand taxpayer helped to fund their education and they have an obligation to repay it so the scheme can continue to support future generations of students.”

Will Joyce repay the cost of his University studies?

Or will he simply be one of those who benefitted from a near-free University education – paid by other hard-working taxpayers at the time – and now insisting that others pay for their own tuition, racking up huge debts in the process?

Another case of a Baby Boomer telling Gen X to “do as I say, not as I do”?

Neither Joyce, nor Revenue Minister Todd McClay, have any moral authority to demand payment for tertiary education from any New Zealander.